You Can’t Have It If It’s Not On Sale

I love grocery shopping with my husband. It’s nice to have someone to walk through the isles with and he’s great at holding onto the coupons and remembering to pick up items I forgot to put on the list. Of course, he can get a little ticked if I take too long leafing through my coupon binder or standing around trying to compare unit prices, but overall he’s gotten much better at waiting patiently for me to pick the best priced item.

When I shop alone I typically carry a list and presort all of my coupons before I head to the store, but when he comes along I just never know what he will place in the shopping cart. He always manages to find something in the store I never would’ve purchased if I were alone. As soon as I see him wander over to a certain shelf I start leafing through my coupons.

Tonight we took a quick trip to Giant because every recipe I wanted to make called for sour cream and I didn’t have a single container of it on hand. We sliced up all of our ingredients, sauteed the chicken, put the pot on low and headed out to the store in search of it and a few other staples.

I tend to stockpile ingredients when they’re on sale, but we’ve been driving back and forth a lot between our homes lately and I stopped keeping track of the pantry inventory. This has really thrown my grocery budget for a loop and I find myself driving out in search of forgotten ingredients quite a bit these days. Tonight just happened to be one of those nights so we ran out in the rain in search of sour cream.

I bet my husband and I are quite the sight as we shop for groceries. He says, “we need tortillas” and I say, “wait, which ones on sale” and immediately begin leafing through my coupons. This same series of short phrases go back and forth as we walk through the isles and fill our cart.

I stock up on ingredients when they go on sale, so the register tape usually shows discounts for every item with the exception of milk, fruits and vegetables. In fact, I tend to gauge my progress in the grocery store by the amount of money we save on the receipt. My husband knows my frugal ways, and as we walked through the store he would say, “this one’s on sale” or ask, “do you have a coupon?”

When he walked over to pick up orange juice I asked if he wanted to try the one that was on sale, because I also had a coupon. He tends to be pretty brand loyal, but he agreed to give it a try.

But when we reached the bakery isle, he picked up a full priced item and held it above the cart. I said, “you’re cheating. You can’t have that if it’s not on sale.” He laughed and placed it into the cart anyway. I found myself saying, “you can have it this time, but next time you’re going to wait until it’s on sale.” He laughed and nodded. I told him it tastes better when you pay less money for it.